


The one where Eva meets Noora the summer before Nissen

by colazitron



Series: smut prompts [23]
Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cunnilingus, F/F, Summer Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 04:45:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14730192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colazitron/pseuds/colazitron
Summary: Eva can't stand being in Oslo with Ingrid and Jonas, so when her father asks her to spend the summer in Bergen with him, she goes. There, she meets Noora, who's just returned from Madrid.20 scenes from Eva's summer, and 1 from afterwards.





	The one where Eva meets Noora the summer before Nissen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smallbump](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallbump/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** I am in no way affiliated with the characters depicted herein or their creators. I made all of this up and am sharing it purely for fun.
> 
> for smallbump. Eva/Noora: "summer fling"

**001.**

There's a girl at the Bergen train station, sitting on the steps out front like Eva is. Maybe she's waiting for someone too. Maybe her father forgot to pick her up too. She seems quite absorbed in her book though, never glances up. At least not when Eva glances over at her. So if she's waiting, she seems to have settled in.

She's pretty. Long blond hair and a loose blouse over high-waisted shorts.

Eva twirls her phone in her hands and stares at the girl until she realises what she's doing and looks back down at her own lap, cheeks flushing with heat. She texts mamma she's going to get an early dinner with pappa, which is not technically a lie but also technically doesn't answer mamma's question about whether pappa remembered to pick her up.

There's a new photo of Ingrid kissing Jonas' cheek on her instagram when Eva checks, posted just two minutes ago.

She hits the like button and sighs, refreshing her feed a few times in the hopes something else might show up, but all that does is another like on the post from Jonas and a gushing comment from Sara about how cute they are.

“Eva!” pappa calls, and Eva looks up and locks her phone, shoving it in her bag unceremoniously.

She grins when pappa jogs over and wraps her up in a hug, hugging him back.

“I'm so sorry, I completely got the days mixed up,” he says. “But, hey, you're here!”

“I'm here,” she confirms, tries hard not to sound like mamma when she does.

“I guess I don't need to show you around,” he jokes when he pulls back, keeping one arm around her. “But how about we go up to that Italian place you liked? It's still open.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” she says, and lets him grab her suitcase and steer her towards the car.

 

**002.**

It doesn't take Eva long to reconnect with her old friends and by the time Friday rolls around the novelty of having her back has worn off for pappa like Eva thought it would, so he only waves his hand and smiles when she asks if she can go to a party with a few people.

“Do you want money for a taxi?” he offers. “I'd rather you didn't walk back by yourself.”

“Yeah, sure,” Eva says and accepts the bills he digs out of his wallet for her. “Thank you.”

He smiles some more and winks at her.

“No problem, kiddo. Be safe, yeah? I'll probably be working late, so you can call me if there's anything you need.”

He's laying the cool-dad thing on a little thick, but Eva smiles and nods, walks over to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks, pappa. Marte's coming to pick me up in half an hour, so I'll get changed.”

Thirty-four minutes later she's in the car and Marte's older brother is promising that he's going to stay sober tonight anyway and if they all leave at the same time, he can take Eva back home. As far as Eva remembers, Lasse has never attended a party sober, and a quick side-glance at Marte and the way she widens her eyes significantly and shakes her head makes Eva glad for the money pappa gave her for a taxi.

“So, Eva,” Lasse asks from up front. “How are you down in glamorous Oslo, now that you've left all of us simple countryfolk behind?”

It's not the first time Eva hears the questions that evening, but at least it sounds more teasing and less bitter than it does from a few other people. It's not like it's Eva's fault her parents got a divorce and her dad wasn't interested in custody. She'd have stayed, probably, if her dad hadn't half-uncomfortably mumbled something about how the schools in Oslo would offer more opportunities anyway. She wasn't keen on leaving her entire life behind her at fourteen, but she hadn't really had a choice.

After extricating herself from the latest round of Oslo-themed teasing, Eva escapes to the kitchen to grab herself a glass of water, the living room stuffy and hot from far too many people crammed into it.

“You're Eva, right?” someone says, and when Eva looks up, the blonde from the train station leans up against the kitchen counter next to her. Her hair's in a loose bun today and she's wearing another equally loose blouse.

“Um, yeah,” Eva says. “Do we know each other?”

“Not yet,” the blonde says, her soft pink lips stretching into a pretty smile. “I'm Noora.”

“Hi,” Eva says and then holds out her hand.

Noora looks a little surprised, but shakes it with a small laugh.

“You moved to Oslo and recently came back?” Noora asks.

Eva sighs and nods.

“Yeah,” she confirms. “Is it all _anyone's_ talking about?”

Noora laughs again.

“Probably. A few weeks ago that was me when I came back from Madrid, so I guess I have to thank you for that.”

Now it's Eva's turn to laugh, and she practically feels herself relax against the kitchen counter. The glass of water is still pleasantly cool in her hand and she shifts her weight a little, away from the sink so she can talk to Noora without being in anyone's way (and being interrupted).

“How long were you in Madrid?”

“Two years,” Noora says. “How long were you in Oslo?”

“Two years,” Eva echoes, watching Noora match her grin.

“And now you're back?” Noora asks.

Eva nods.

“Yes. Or, well. No, only for the summer. I live in Oslo with mamma but pappa asked if I didn't want to spend the summer with him here, and, well.”

“Hm,” Noora says in understanding. “You don't get to see him often?”

“Um, no. Not often,” Eva says. It's a bit of an understatement, since she hasn't seen him outside a handful of skype calls in two years, but. Well. She's not at that level of drunk yet where she's about to spill her entire life story to a stranger.

“Then it's nice, right? Being here for the summer?” Noora asks.

“Yeah,” Eva says. “It's nice.”

It's better than Oslo right now, at any rate.

 

**003.**

“I can't believe you've left me here with Jonas and Ingrid to spend your summer in _Bergen_ ,” Isak says, sighing faux-deeply and rolling his eyes on the other end of their skype call. “It's not like you grew up there or anything...”

Eva grins and dips the brush of her nail polish back into the bottle.

“You can third-and-fourth-wheel with Sara though!” she says and looks up to laugh at the way she knows he'll roll his eyes at her.

He doesn't disappoint.

“Yeah, that's my ideal summer. Hanging around my ex-girlfriend while her best friend makes out with my best friend.”

Isak sighs again, but it's a real one this time, and she feels it settle heavily in her chest and heaves a sigh of her own.

“Yeah, I don't want to watch my best friend make out with your best friend either,” she says.

He shoots her a commiserating look that loses a good few pixels but no sincerity to the crappy connection.

“I mean, Jonas is my bro and everything, but honestly what is it about him that has everyone in love with him?” he asks her pulling on a grin.

Eva grins back and shrugs, swiping colour over another nail.

“Well, not _everyone_ ,” she says. “ _You're_ not in love with him.”

Isak's eyes bug and his cheeks flush and he seems to choke on air, coughing out his surprise. Eva can't help but burst into laughter, a drop of nail polish falling onto the keyboard of her laptop. Oops.

“Very funny, Eva,” he says.

“I'm just saying. You and Sara seem to be immune, so maybe that means you're meant for each other,” she teases and follows it up with a few kissy noises.

“Absolutely not,” Isak insists, and even as she laughs, Eva feels a little bad for Sara.

When Isak asked Sara out shortly after Eva moved to Oslo and befriended her and Ingrid, Sara played it cool and told them she'd only said yes because Isak was Isak. Good grades, good at football, always up for a joke, and cute too. 'I'll be one of the only girls with a boyfriend,' she'd said and thrown her hair over her shoulder, and Ingrid and Eva had shared a look and not said anything about the flush on her cheeks.

Later, Ingrid had confided to Eva that Sara'd had a crush on Isak basically since kindergarten. And though that was two years ago and Sara claimed she wasn't that sad when Isak broke up with her half a year later, Eva still always feels mean for knowing how definitely over Sara Isak is. It doesn't help that when Isak worked out how Eva feels about Jonas and confronted her about it, striking up a strange friendship born from sharing a secret and the growing loneliness in Isak that Eva recognises from when she first moved to Oslo, Sara made a few very pointed comments about dating your friends' exes. Pointed enough for Eva to make up a crush on Ole, who she knows won't be joining them at Nissen in the fall and Eva can claim to have gotten over over the course of her summer in Bergen. Hopefully she'll _actually_ be over Jonas by the time she goes home.

“Eva?” Isak calls, like he's done it two or three times already. “You still there?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Eva says, and then finally dips her brush back in the polish to paint her final nail. “Sara thinks I have a crush on you, did I tell you that?”

Isak frowns.

“Sara thinks you have a crush on Ole.”

“Yeah, because I told her I do. Because she thought I have a crush on you.”

“Fuck's sake, really?” he asks with a groan and lets his entire body slump in annoyance. “Jonas has been hinting at that too. Can't a guy and a girl be friends without either one wanting to fuck the other? No offence.”

Eva laughs again and screws her nail polish shut.

“None taken. The lack of interest is mutual, don't worry.”

Isak grins and winks at her.

Before Eva can say anything in return, there's a knock on her door out to the backyard and when she looks up, eyes wide and heart racing, there's Noora, waving her phone in the air.

“What is it?” Isak asks.

“Oh, shit, sorry, I have to go,” Eva says. “Visitor.”

“A visitor?” Isak asks, and Eva spares him half a glance to roll her eyes at his tone.

“Talk later, Isak, bye,” she says, and cuts whatever it was he wanted to say off by slamming her laptop shut and hopping up from the bed.

“Your doorbell might be broken?” Noora says when Eva opens the door to her and sheepishly steps aside to let her in. “And your phone?”

“Must be. I didn't hear it,” Eva says.

“Well, but you were distracted,” Noora says and leans in for a hug. She sounds as suggestive as Isak had, and Eva laughs it off.

“Nah, that was just a friend from Oslo,” Eva says, attempting to smooth down her duvet, since there's nowhere else for Noora to sit.

Noora slips out of her shoes and settles in against Eva's headboard while Eva clears her laptop and nail polish stuff away hastily. When she turns back to join Noora, Noora's fiddling with her hair and finally looks up at Eva with a sigh.

“Can I borrow a hair tie?”

Noora's hair isn't quite as long as Eva's, but it's still long, and Eva definitely relates to that struggle.

“Yeah, sure,” she says, and grabs a random hair tie off her dresser top, where she's stashed all of her beauty supplies.

“Sometimes I just want to cut it off,” Noora says as she wrestles her hair into another loose bun, and Eva laughs, climbing onto the bed to join her.

“Yeah, same,” she says.

Noora gives her a look and a smile that Eva can't quite read, but then turns to face her more fully, face lighting up.

“Oh my god, I need to tell you about David from the other night,” she says.

Eva settles in.

 

**004.**

“So, why are you spending the summer here in Bergen?” Noora asks.

Today, Eva didn't even bother waiting for pappa to cancel their lunch date and just made one with Noora instead.

Eva pokes around her salad a little and then sighs.

“Um, well. It's a bit of a cliché,” she says. “So don't laugh, okay?”

Noora mimes zipping her lips and shakes her head.

“So, one of my best friends in Oslo has this boyfriend,” Eva starts, pushing half a cherry tomato around her plate, her cheeks hot and feeling like they're probably around the same colour as that tomato.

When she looks up, Noora's frowning. It makes Eva falter for a moment, but then she swallows heavily and makes herself go on.

“And I have a crush on him,” she says, a little too fast maybe, but Noora's face lightens with understanding.

“Oh,” she says.

Eva shrugs and pushes the tomato around some more.

“Yeah.”

“That sounds tough,” Noora says and smiles at her.

Eva huffs half a laugh and finally spears the tomato.

“I'm determined to get over it,” she says.

Noora grins.

“That's the spirit. You get over that boy, I'll cut my hair.”

Eva's laugh at that comes easily and she holds out her hand to Noora over the table.

“Deal.”

Noora grabs her hand and squeezes it tight, giving it one firm shake. Her hand is warm and soft, and the peach pink of her nails makes Eva slightly self-conscious about the chipped red on her own.

“Deal.”

 

**005.**

Noora is-- she's so pretty.

This is not news, because Eva noticed that the very first time she saw her sitting on the steps in front of the train station, but it's somehow different now.

Now that they're getting ready for another party together, Noora winding her hair into a fish-tail braid that hangs over one shoulder loosely. The skin-tight jeans Noora pulls on over her slim legs and the cute cotton underwear with the tiny flowers on. It's not sexy underwear; the grey has faded a little, but the sight of it makes Eva smile. It suits Noora somehow. This sweet, playful interior. Noora doesn't wear a lot of makeup, but Eva watches, fascinated, as she dusts blush on her cheeks and swipes a light pink over her lips. It makes her look like she's glowing.

Eva has no idea how to make herself look like that.

She wears her hair open, because she can't be bothered to do anything with it and she doesn't know how to braid it into the neat braids she sees other girls wear. She only braids it when she needs it out of the way.

She wears red lipstick because that's what's sexy, right? And her eye makeup is dark and heavy because she always fudges it and in trying to correct it, it just becomes heavier and heavier and then she can't be bothered taking it all off and starting over again.

But Noora smiles at Eva like she thinks Eva's the pretty one when she looks up from her own reflection in the mirror, and she brushes a strand of Eva's hair back over her shoulder absentmindedly.

It makes Eva's stomach flip.

 

**006.**

“Isak, eh?” Noora says, half teasing, half commiserating when his name lights up Eva's phone screen for the second time that afternoon.

“What?” Eva asks, denying the call and sending off a quick text to apologise, telling Isak to call her later in the evening as she'll be free to talk then.

“Is he that boyfriend?” Noora asks, voice kind.

Eva looks up from her phone with wide eyes, the _whoos_ _h_ of the outgoing message getting lost in the silence in her head.

Isak? What boyfriend?

“Wha-- oh! Oh, no,” Eva says, shaking her head and falling into a laugh. “No, Isak's not who I have a crush on.”

Noora looks a little sheepish.

“Sorry, you just looked a little… I don't know. Far away? When he called.”

Eva hums and looks down at her phone where Isak's only sent her a thumbs-up in reply.

“No, Isak's… my friend,” she says.

She's pretty sure by now he is. He's probably the only person around whom she doesn't feel like she has to constantly be careful with what she says. He knows about her crush on Jonas, he knows how she feels about her parents' separation, about her dad. He knows how grateful she was that Ingrid and Sara took her in without question but that she doesn't always… get them.

“You miss him?” Noora guesses.

“I kind of do,” Eva says.

“You sound surprised by that,” Noora says with a grin.

Eva laughs a little.

“I am,” she admits. “He's, technically, the boyfriend's best friend. And one of my best friends' ex boyfriend.”

“Wow,” Noora says, eyes wide and an amused smile curling her lips. She's not wearing lipstick today but her lips are the prettiest pink anyway. A girl could get jealous looking at her face all day, but not Eva. Noora makes her too happy for that. “Are there so few boys in Oslo?”

Eva laughs and drops her phone onto the grass next to her.

“You'd think not,” she says. “But they all grew up together, basically. Went to the same kindergarten and primary and lower secondary. I only met them when I moved to Oslo two years ago and everyone was already quite entangled.”

“That happens,” Noora says with a little nod. “And you're all going to the same upper secondary in the fall as well?”

“Yeah,” Eva says. “Hartvig Nissen.”

Noora hums and then lies back on the grass, closing her eyes.

“I'm going to miss you when you leave.”

 

**007.**

“Why did you go to Madrid?” Eva asks, legs dangling over the wooden pier behind the Old Bergen Museum. It's not hot enough today for a swim, an overcast day, but Noora suggested the open air museum and Eva hasn't been since she was a child. So now here they are, sandwiches in their bags, and the wooden pier mostly to themselves.

Noora sighs deeply.

“It's a bit of a story,” she says, quietly.

Eva looks up from the dark blue water and over at her. Noora's still looking out onto the water, the boats and houses tucked along the edges of the fjord.

“You don't have to tell me.”

Noora sighs again.

“I want to,” she says, but doesn't go on.

Eva puts her hand over Noora's beside her and waits.

“I had a boyfriend when I was thirteen. He was fifteen. He made me feel so mature, going out with a fifteen-year-old,” she says finally and then snorts at the thought that fifteen is mature in any way. It's easier now, at sixteen, to realise that it's obviously not, if only because Eva doesn't feel at all mature herself.

“It made me think that he was right about me being ready to have sex. So I slept with him. And then he dumped me.”

Eva feels her jaw slacken in outraged surprise.

“I got… bad,” Noora goes on. “Stopped eating, kind of. I thought it had to be me, you know? That I did something wrong or wasn't as pretty as the girls his age.”

Eva wants to say something, but she has no idea what. She thinks of the careful way Noora assembled their sandwiches earlier in Eva's kitchen, listing the benefits of each new thing she added. Eva laughed then, called her a professional nutritionist and joked about how she'd put Noora in charge of her diet from now on.

Fucking hell.

“My parents,” Noora says and drifts off into another sigh. “They wanted to have a kid more than they want to actually take care of one. You know? 'Look, we have the perfect marriage and the perfect child'.”

“Noora...” Eva says helplessly, squeezing Noora's hand.

“It's not that they don't love me because of who I am or anything. I think they might love me. They just aren't the type of people who should have children, I don't think. They don't mean to ignore me, they just forget I'm there.”

Eva can't help herself at that, throws her arms around Noora and squeezes her tight in a hug. She doesn't expect Noora to burrow into her like she does, but it only makes her hold her even more tightly.

“That boy started spreading all sorts of rumours about me and I just… I had to get away,” Noora goes on. “I basically threw a dart at a map and ran. My parents said it'd be good for me to experience a different culture. They didn't even _ask_ why I wanted to go. I was fourteen!”

Eva suddenly wishes they'd stayed home after all, so she could cuddle Noora on her soft sofa, or her bed.

But they're here on the weather-worn wooden planks, and Eva decides she doesn't care. She pulls Noora away from the edge and lays them down, rubbing her hand over Noora's back as she breathes stuttering breaths and tries not to cry, hiding her face in the junction of Eva's neck and shoulders.

And when she's calmed again, they lie there a little longer. Side by side, staring up into the grey skies, hands tightly clasped together.

Eva's heart aches.

 

**008.**

Eva's had too much beer.

Eva's had too much beer, and the music is too loud, and the lights are too low, and the room is too warm.

And Noora is just too pretty.

“You're so pretty!” Eva shouts at Noora, arms loosely slung around her neck as they dance.

They're dancing, right? Eva's pretty sure they're dancing. That's why everything's moving so much!

Oh. Wait, is that the beer?

Noora laughs, and her eyes glitter in the dark and her lips are a dark red today, not the soft pink they usually are. Her hair's pinned up neatly in such a way that makes it look like it's a lot shorter than it actually is. Her camisole top is slinky and soft under Eva's hands and the light bounces off it. Eva can't tell if she should notice how good the soft swells of Noora's breasts look underneath it. It's not like she can help noticing, right? She has eyes!

“ _You're_ pretty,” Noora says back. Loud, so she can be heard over the too-loud music, but not shouting in the kind of far-too-loud way that Eva is.

Noora doesn't drink. Eva's noticed that.

“You think so?!” Eva asks, excited. She wore this dress on purpose. It's a good fit for her, she thinks. Short, and she likes the way the skirt swishes.

Noora laughs again.

“Yes, Eva. You're very pretty,” she says again.

Eva tips forward and puts her mouth on Noora's.

Cheers erupt around them.

Noora pushes her back, weaselling out of her arms with a laugh.

Eva's had too much beer.

 

**009.**

“I fucked up,” Eva says, headphones on and plugged into her laptop.

Isak's listening to some soft guitar stuff on his side of the skype connection, volume turned down so he can hear her and maybe because he can tell how hungover she is from the circles under her eyes. She looks a mess. She hasn't said much the past twenty minutes of their skype call but she feels less alone with him on her laptop screen. The house is too big and quiet with just her in it.

His face falls and he turns his attention away from whatever else he was doing and back to her.

“What did you do?” he asks, voice soft and face kind.

It really is odd that she talks to him like this now. She doesn't quite know when that happened, when him keeping her secret turned into her telling him more secrets.

“I kissed someone I shouldn't have,” she says, quietly.

“Well, Jonas is here, so how bad could it be,” he jokes, raising a sardonic eyebrow.

Eva smiles a small smile despite herself. That's true, she supposes. She hasn't even really thought of Jonas in a good week.

“I kissed my friend,” she says instead. “And she pushed me away.”

Her heart is hammering inside her chest, but as she watches Isak fall silent, looking at her through the screen like he's not sure what to do now, Eva doesn't have it in her to be particularly worried about her confession. So she kissed a girl. So the fuck what. It's not the first time she's done it, though this doesn't feel like it did when she kissed Sara at parties.

Still, she's a lot more worried about Noora being angry at her than she is about how kissing girls is apparently a thing she does. Kissing Noora, at least.

“What happened?” Isak asks eventually, reaching for something outside view and then the music goes silent.

Eva sighs and shrugs.

“We were at a party,” she says. “I don't know.”

“You just… kissed her?” he asks.

“I was drunk. She was so pretty.”

She blushes then when Isak's eyes go wide, and turns her face away, sinking lower into her mountain of pillows and her duvet.

“Isak,” she whines, even as she hides from him. “What do I do?”

“I think,” Isak says carefully, his cheeks red too when Eva peeks out at her screen, “you have to talk to her? Maybe she was just surprised.”

She lets the hope unfurl in her chest slowly, watching him as he sits there in Oslo, six hours away, looking uncomfortable but determined.

It didn't even occur to her to call Sara or Ingrid, she realises. Maybe this is why. Because he doesn't know what to do either, but he tries to help anyway.

“You think?”

“Maybe,” he says and shrugs. “Maybe it won't be so bad. Maybe… maybe she even likes you back.”

Eva swallows heavily at the thought and feels the butterflies in her belly turn from nausea to excitement. God, she does like Noora like that, doesn't she.

They sit in silence for a while longer and Isak looks off to the side, staring into the middle distance like he's trying to think of more to say. Finally, he sighs and looks back at her with a small smile.

“Or maybe... I don't know. Maybe she doesn't. But maybe she'll still be your friend at least. You won't know until you talk to her.”

 

**010.**

**Isak Valtersen**

Thank you for earlier

Anytime, girl

♥

♥

 

**011.**

It's intensely awkward, having Noora sit on her bed like this now, but it felt too weird to ask her to hang out in the living room. They're only there when they want to watch a movie on the big TV and they hardly ever bother with that. They both prefer the cosiness of Eva's bed and her laptop screen, even if it's a lot smaller.

“I'm sorry,” Eva presses out finally when the silence has gotten unbearably heavy. “Please don't be mad at me.”

Noora flushes, red lighting up her cheeks and Eva curses herself inwardly for how good she thinks the colour looks on her. How alive it makes her face.

“I'm not mad,” Noora says.

“Really?” Eva asks, looking up at her through her eyelashes, heart beating heavily inside her chest. “You promise?”

“I promise,” Noora says, small smile on her lips. Eva can't believe she kissed those lips and she only has a beer-stained memory of it.

“I didn't mean to attack you like that,” Eva says. “I don't know what came over me.”

“You were drunk,” Noora says with a shrug, looks away a little like she's uncomfortable.

Eva's stomach sinks.

“I was. I shouldn't have done it.”

“It's really okay, Eva. We all do things we don't mean when we're drunk,” Noora says quietly. “I just really don't like being a spectacle.”

“I'm sorry,” Eva repeats.

Noora sighs a little and then pulls herself up again, smiling at Eva.

“It's really okay,” she says, and then winks at Eva. “Just stick to kissing people sober.”

Eva makes herself laugh.

“Yeah, that's probably a good idea.”

 

**012.**

It's like she can't stop noticing it now.

Noora's hair glowing in the sun, the freckles the sun brings out on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. The way she stumbles around words when she's caught off-guard and doesn't quite know what to say. The pretty bow of her lips when she pouts at Eva to get her to agree to Noora's choice of movie when they're trying to decide what to watch.

The way Eva gives in every time because the only alternative is leaning over to kiss that pout right off her and that didn't go so well last time.

And, shamefully, because this isn't a way she should be thinking about a _friend_ , the soft swell of her slim hips. Her tiny feet. The perpetually clean lines of her nails. The tips of her ears when she tucks her hair behind them. Her breasts when she wears a shirt tight enough to make them visible, and the knowledge of them under her loose blouses when she doesn't.

Fuck.

 

**013.**

Eva's had too much beer again.

She's had too much beer and she's leaning heavily against Noora, but she's not going to kiss her. She didn't all night, even though Noora looks so radiant tonight.

“That's nice, Eva,” Noora says, wrestling Eva's house-key out of her purse. Pappa's on a trip for a few days, so they don't even have to worry about being quiet when they go in.

“I tried really hard, Noora,” Eva says. “You're so pretty but I didn't kiss you at all.”

“Yes,” Noora agrees, and the door swings open, making Eva stumble. Fuck, she probably shouldn't have leaned against it quite so heavily. That was a stupid idea. Like kissing Noora would be.

“Because you don't want me to kiss you, and I don't want you to be mad at me,” Eva explains. “Even though you're so pretty and I think about kissing you a lot.”

Noora blushes, but grabs Eva's wrist and drags her inside.

“I'm sorry,” Eva wails, pulling her hand out of Noora's grasp and hiding her face in them. “I shouldn't have said that either.”

“It's okay,” Noora says and gently takes her hands away from her face to guide her through the house again.

Eva nods morosely and follows after her, brushes her teeth when Noora presses her toothbrush into her hand, drinks down the tall glass of water Noora hands her next, sits down to pee when Noora turns her back.

It's a bit humiliating, having Noora look after her like she's a child, but when Noora climbs into bed with her, Eva feels warm.

“You should make me a list,” she mumbles.

“A list?” Noora asks.

“Of things I shouldn't do. So I won't bother you.”

Noora looks at her in a way that Eva is too tired to read properly. She looks sad, somehow, and Eva bites her lip. Another thing for the list. She doesn't ever want to make Noora sad.

“You're not bothering me,” Noora says, and strokes Eva's hair away from her forehead.

“Yes, I am,” Eva insists. “I'm sorry I have a crush on you.”

Noora freezes and then she huffs a small laugh.

“You don't have a crush on me,” she says. “You're just drunk.”

Eva squeezes her eyes shut, willing the tears she feels welling up to _stay put._ She always gets so emotional when she's drunk.

“I'm sorry,” she says again, voice cracking.

“It's okay,” Noora says and strokes Eva's head again. “It's okay.”

 

**014.**

If last time was awkward, this time is hell.

Eva doesn't have as bad a hangover as she could, only a slight headache and her eyes unhappy at the bright sunshine filtering in from outside, but Noora's sitting at the other end of the couch, knees tucked up against her chest, curled up into a ball like she's trying to make herself as small as possible.

“I'm really sorry, Noora,” Eva says.

Noora tries a smile on for size and shrugs.

“It's okay,” she says again. “You were just drunk.”

Eva groans out her frustration slumps over.

“I promise I'll stop drinking, okay? I'm much better at handling this crush business sober.”

She's blushing as she says it, but there's no use pretending she didn't tell Noora how she felt last night. Out of the mouths of babes and drunkards comes truth, after all.

“What?” Noora asks, eyes wide, her whole body frozen still.

“Um,” Eva says. Noora can't have forgotten, can she? “I'm really sorry that I keep making it awkward. I promise I get that you just want to be my friend and you don't like me like that.”

“You just kissed me because you were drunk. You have a crush on that boy in Oslo,” Noora insists.

Eva snorts a hollow laugh.

“No, I moved on from one inadvisable crush to the next,” she jokes. “I guess I'll get over you when I go back home.”

Noora's entire face goes red, her eyes wide as she stares at Eva.

Eva can't help but stare back. What is happening?

“I thought you were just drunk,” Noora says, her voice timid and small, but here eyes glued to Eva like she can't look away. The blush won't leave her cheeks either, and Eva feels her heart trip inside her chest. Is this… a good thing? Does Noora maybe not hate the idea of Eva liking her? Or is this the exact opposite and now that Noora knows that Eva thinks about kissing her sober too, she'll run.

Eva bites her lip hard. She can hear her blood rush in her ears, a little disoriented and hot down the back of her neck.

“I kissed you because I was drunk. I wanted to kiss you because I like you,” she says.

Noora is quiet long enough that Eva thinks she's just going to call mamma and get on the next train home.

“I like you too,” Noora finally speaks. “I thought--”

She doesn't finish the sentence, but she doesn't have to. Eva fills in the blank in a dizzying rush of disbelief and relief, Noora's words bouncing around her heart, filling her up with butterflies and fireworks and all the clichés.

“Holy shit, you do?” Eva finds herself asking.

Noora laughs, and relaxes where she sits, legs sliding down, face brightening.

“I do.”

 

**015.**

Noora's lips taste like strawberries. Which makes sense, because until a few moments ago they were lying in Eva's backyard on a picnic blanket in their bikinis, eating strawberries with cream from a bowl they shared.

Only Noora's hair shines like the snowcapped top of a mountain in the sun, and her eyes glitter even behind her sunglasses. Not to mention the way her lips go red with berry juice and her skin looks as soft as the cream. And there's so much of it for Eva to see – Noora's bare arms and shoulders, her back, her legs. Eva's been trying not to look too much, but their shoulders and arms kept brushing together, and Noora's smile was even sweeter than the strawberries as she told Eva about something she's already forgotten about the moment she touches their lips together.

There's nothing Eva likes better than this. No one she's ever kissed who makes her feel like this. There's nothing Eva knows to compare to the softness of Noora's lips, to the way her hair feels tangled around Eva's fingers. The smoothness of her skin and the way the press of her breasts against Eva's own makes excitement pool hot and low in her belly, makes her rub her thighs together and glance her hands down over Noora's arms, over her belly and sides, over the outsides of her thighs.

She never dares to push, but Noora never tells her off for touching her like this so she takes what she can, fits her mouth to the soft swell of a breast just peeking out over the top of Noora's bikini, rolls her onto her back so her small breasts are almost flat against her chest and sucks a bruise there that makes Noora gasp and cling to her shoulders.

Eva doesn't ever want this summer to end.

 

**016.**

“Eva,” Noora pants, mouth slick and red with kisses, her hands on Eva's shoulders where she's perched on Eva's lap – where Eva pulled her down into her lap instead of letting her get up to get them some more snacks for their movie night. Who needs snacks when Eva could be putting her mouth on Noora instead?

“Eva,” she sighs again when Eva slips her hand up under her top, stroking the soft skin over her midriff, her ribs.

And then Noora grabs her hand through the fabric of her camisole and pulls it higher, puts it on her breast and squeezes.

“Please, Eva,” she says.

Eva moans and presses her face into Noora's stomach, winds her second arm around her waist to pull her closer and strokes the fingers of the other one over Noora's breast. Fuck, she feels so good in Eva's arms like this.

Emboldened by Noora's request, she slips her second hand up under Noora's top too, finds the clasp of Noora's bra at her back and undoes it easily, feels the snap of it give way and the fabric come loose at the front.

Noora moans and wraps her arms around Eva's head, holds her close to her chest and lets Eva pull the straps of her bra down her shoulders and then slips her arms out of them entirely, reaches between them to pull it out from under her camisole and drops it onto the bed next to them. Her eyes shine in the low light of Eva's bedside lamp, and she hovers a bit, like she's not sure she didn't go too far.

“Okay?” Eva asks.

“Me?” Noora asks back. “Fuck, I want you so bad. Are you okay?”

Eva feels her eyes widen and then gives in to the impulse welling up inside her like a wave and presses her face between Noora's breasts, mouthing at the skin just above the neckline before she turns sideways and sucks the hardened peak of one of Noora's nipples into her mouth through her shirt.

Noora's moan is sudden and high-pitched, a noise of surprise as much as one of pleasure, but she grabs the back of Eva's head to hold her close, cards her fingers through her hair.

“Fuck, Eva,” she pants and shuffles forward on her knees, sinks down into Eva's lap more fully to press them together as well as she can.

“Can I touch you?” Eva asks, feeling breathless at the sight of the wet stain she's left on Noora's top. “Please, let me touch you. I'm so wet thinking about you.”

Noora groans and leans down to kiss Eva, all eager tongues and messy faces.

“Please,” she says, finally. “Me too, Eva. I want to touch you too.”

 

**017.**

“So that worked out well?” Isak grins, gesturing to his own collarbone and staring at hers.

When Eva checks the small image of her in the corner of the screen she sees the two love bites Noora left there and laughs as she puts a hand on it, her cheeks heating with pleasure.

“Yeah, it worked out really well,” she says.

“That's great,” Isak says, smiling like he genuinely means it.

“It is great,” Eva sighs dreamily. Noora should be here in a few minutes and they're going to go have a look at the Grieg museum. Eva doesn't know anything about classical music, and neither does Noora, but the idea of going with her, learning something new, and getting to be on something of a date has Eva almost jumping out of her skin with excitement.

“But how's Oslo?” she asks, looking for distraction.

There's a flicker of something that runs over Isak's face that she can't make out from so far away, but she feels a tiny drop of dread at it anyway. When was the last time she asked Isak about how he was doing? Honestly asked him?

Have they ever talked about him?

“Oh, you know,” he says. “Same old. Jonas and Ingrid are surgically attached at the lips and Sara is talking about starting a bus as soon as they get to Nissen.”

Eva laughs at the exasperated way he rolls his eyes.

“Who gives a shit about that?” he asks. “We've not even started upper secondary yet. Russ is years away!”

“Well, you need to get started early if you want to be on a good bus, I guess,” Eva says diplomatically.

“I'm not sure I want to be on a bus at all,” Isak says, wrinkling his nose a little.

“We'll go to a few parties when I come back. I'll lighten you up. Take you under my wing,” Eva teases.

“You're two weeks older than me, Eva,” Isak grins

“Well, but I got a hot girl this summer,” she points out. “What did you get?”

He laughs and looks off to the side, shrugging a little.

“Sunburn?” he suggests.

Eva laughs even though it's a little weak of a joke, makes note of how he looks – relieved?

“You're gonna need some aloe for that self-burn,” she quips back, and he snorts a laugh like he wasn't expecting it.

“Alright, alright. Jeez,” he says. “Are you going to come back all cocky now that you've kissed a girl?”

“I've more than kissed her,” she says, because she wants to brag about it, even if it makes her whole body light up with nerves.

“Gross, Eva, I don't need to hear that,” he complains, pulling a ridiculous face.

Eva laughs.

“I bet Jonas tells you about Ingrid!”

“I don't need to hear that either!” he insists with the same exaggerated grimace. “Some things are meant to stay private, for god's sake!”

“You're a wimp,” Eva laughs, her attention drawn away when her phone lights up with Noora's face where she put it next to her laptop so she won't miss her call.

“I gotta go,” she says, barely glancing at the screen.

“Have fun,” Isak says, and she gives him a little wave before she closes her laptop again and jumps off the bed.

She's already dressed and ready, and less than twenty seconds later she meets Noora outside her front door, feeling breathless with excitement.

Noora beams at her.

“Hi,” she says, and Eva grabs her to pull her into a kiss.

“Hi.”

 

**018.**

There's only a week left of summer holidays and Eva's thoughts have spun out of control.

Last night she looked up schools in Bergen, considered sending in a late application. Surely pappa will let her stay if she asks. He won't have to do anything. She's self-sufficient. She can make her own food, get around herself. She's sixteen!

Fuck, she doesn't want to leave Noora.

But that's crazy, right? She can't uproot her entire life – again! – for a girl she only just met a few weeks ago. A girl who hasn't promised her anything, even if she lets Eva kiss her any chance she gets, even if she's touched Eva in places no one else ever has. And not just physically.

“I don't want to go,” she whispers into Noora's hair, moonlight the only thing illuminating their naked bodies tangled together under Eva's light summer duvet.

Noora is tracing shapes into her belly and hips with her finger, moves up to circle one of Eva's breasts occasionally.

She props herself up onto her other elbow and leans over Eva to kiss her.

“So stay,” she says.

Eva kisses her back, heart sinking.

Pappa might let her stay, but mamma won't. And pappa won't fight her on it.

So she kisses Noora, tucks her hair behind her ear, pulls her down so they're pressed flush together again and rolls her onto her back. Slips a thigh between Noora's to feel where she's still wet and messy from Eva's fingers and Eva's mouth.

“Come with me,” she says, kissing her way down Noora's neck. “Come with me.”

 

**019.**

Noora goes to dinner with Eva and pappa on her last night in Bergen, wearing a light blue dress that Eva's never seen before and looking like every one of the dreams Eva didn't know she had. Her lips are a bright red and her hair-- her hair is cut short, falling to just below her chin. She looks a little apprehensive, like she's not sure Eva will like it.

“Well, look at you two girls,” pappa says with a jovial smile. “You'll have all the boys falling over their feet when you go back to school.”

The thought makes Eva suddenly wild with jealousy, makes her claim to have forgotten her phone in her room and grab Noora's wrist to drag her along while she goes to fetch it.

Inside, she wraps her arms around Noora's waist and presses her face into her neck, knows she can't kiss her now because Noora's lipstick will give them away.

Noora hugs her back.

“It's okay,” she says. “We're gonna be okay.”

 

**020.**

After dinner, when pappa goes out with a few colleagues to celebrate something Eva doesn't care to remember, Eva carefully peels Noora out of her dress and doesn't give a damn about the stains her lipstick leaves on Eva's skin, about the stains her own leaves on Noora's. She only wishes they were permanent, that she could wear Noora on her body like a brand when she goes back to Oslo. The thought that some day soon someone else would put their hands and lips on Noora like this-- Eva can't bear it.

So she buries her face between Noora's legs, breathes in the scent of her and licks up her taste until her tongue goes numb and Noora's cries go hoarse and tired. Until her hand pushes at Eva's head weakly, begging her to give her a break. Tries to remember every detail of her body and her laugh and her touch.

“Come with me,” she breathes, kissing Noora's stomach and her hips, her ribs and breasts. Her mouth.

“Come with me.”

Noora lifts her arms to hug her close, tired and sated, and nods.

“Okay.”

Eva closes her eyes and pretends she means it.

 

**+001.**

Jonas, Ingrid, and Sara are walking ahead, Jonas and Ingrid's hands linked while Ingrid and Sara talk about finding sponsors for the bus they're going to start. They're thinking a soft drink company. Something cool so they can get lots of people on their bus and establish themselves as the cool bus right away.

Eva watches Jonas and Ingrid's hands and marvels at how only a little over a month ago she'd have felt like the sight was tearing her apart inside. What a difference a little distance can make. Well, a little distance and a gorgeous girl.

“You're way too chipper for a first school day,” Isak says, pulling her out of her thoughts.

Eva beams at him and wraps her arms around one of his, pulling at it a little with her excitement. She does feel like she's practically bubbling over with it.

“You know why,” she insists.

She hasn't told Ingrid and Sara yet, but Isak knows, and so he laughs, even as he pulls his arm from her grasp, rubbing at his shoulder a little. Oops.

“Yeah, I know,” he says.

Eva beams at him and skips a few steps, just for something to do with the restless energy making her so jittery.

“Hey,” he says then, bumping his arm into hers. “I'm really looking forward to meeting her.”

Eva practically feels herself slow down and melt at the thought. It's a little nerve-wracking, thinking about introducing Noora to her friends, but knowing that she definitely has Isak on her side makes it easier. If she has Isak, she has Jonas. And if she has Jonas, she'll have Ingrid too. She's far too smitten to outright say anything she thinks Jonas would think is uncool. And she doesn't think Sara and Ingrid will have a problem with it anyway. They've been nothing but nice to Eva. It was never an issue when Eva and Sara kissed, so even if this is different… surely it'll be fine.

“She's looking forward to meeting you too,” Eva says, and watches Isak's face slacken in surprise. Eva's not sure what to do with that.

“Hey, you're one of my best friends now. You're not getting out of it that easily,” she teases.

He blinks at her and then laughs, though he still looks at her like she's caught him off-guard.

“Alright,” he says, softly.

“Quit flirting, we're going to leave you behind!” Ingrid calls back to them with a laugh, and when Eva looks over to her she realises they've made it all the way to their new school while she wasn't paying attention.

Isak rolls his eyes, but Eva laughs as they pick up the pace to catch up.

“I promise you we weren't flirting,” Eva says distractedly, searching the crowd of students in the courtyard for that familiar head of blonde hair.

Sara snorts, but Eva barely pays her any mind, catching sight of Noora stood somewhere off to the side by herself.

“What, because you have a crush on Ole?” she asks.

Eva lifts her hand and waves, grinning when she catches Noora's attention, heart fluttering excitedly in her chest when Noora smiles back and starts making her way over.

“No,” Eva says, turning to Sara to shrug at her. “Because I have a girlfriend.”

Then she runs up to Noora and swoops her up in a hug, making her squeal with laughter when she almost pulls her up off her toes.

“I can't believe you're here.”

“I've been here for a week,” Noora laughs. “You saw me yesterday.”

“Still,” Eva insists putting her back down and leaning in to give her a gentle peck on the mouth. “You're here.”

Noora's smile softens and she laces her fingers through Eva's, giving them a squeeze.

“Yeah,” she confirms, “I'm here.”

 

**The End**


End file.
